Quality Matters: Collaborative Program Planning at a State Level

October 21, 2007

Quality in online distance education has been a hot topic in the popular, professional, and academic literature during the past decade. This article describes an innovative response to the problem of assuring quality in sharable online courses encountered by MarylandOnline, a statewide consortium of 19 Maryland community colleges and four-year institutions. Phases of collaborative program development of the Quality Matters program, a replicable system of peer-review for quality assurance and continuous improvement for online courses, are described.